No Sea Legs Here
by elohiniar
Summary: Neytiri finds out that Jake cannot walk. What happens now? (Takes place during the movie)


**I had this curiosity...I think Jake and Neyteri share a link when they become mated for life but I started wondering what would happen when Neytiri found out that he was unable to walk.**

No Sea-Legs Here

Jake sat at the computer console. Max just landed the blow that at 0600 Quaritch and his men were going to lay waste to the Na'vi who had found refuge at the tree of souls. He rubbed the stubble growing on his chin. They had the home advantage. The floating mountains were dangerous and deadly. If this is where the battle would be they had a chance, a slim chance but that is what he told Trudy and Norm. He was already making plans in his head. They would attack with Ikran from above and with direhorses attacking from below in one of the forests. It would have to be on the floating mountain where the link was or else he and Norm would be left completely vulnerable. Homefield advantage and then he was brought out of his thoughts by a big blue hand knocking on the window. He jolted, nearly flipping backwards in his wheel chair to see Neytiri squatting by the silver walled linking room they had high jacked. "Shit! What are you doing here?" He rolled over to one of the walls where the emergency masks where. It suddenly occurred to him, she had never seen him for who he was.

Sure, she had asked once. Sky people have small, pale bodies. Not vibrant blue bodies of the Na'vi. He told her he looked all the sky people but he had said nothing about his legs. He slowed down as he put the mask over his face. "Need a hand hot wheels?" Trudy asked him.

"Nah, I got it," he yanked the mask over his face, taking a big deep breath and opened the inner door to the isolation chamber, then the outer one. It wasn't like the forest was wheels friendly, but something brought her all the way out here. His avatar needed to rest. "Hi," he said nervously as he rolled down the plank into the tall green grass that surrounded them.

"What is this? Ma Jake? You can't walk?" She rolled one of his wheels back and forth curiously with her index finger.

"Yeah," he admitted with a pinch in his chest. He was Toruk Macto, the great warrior, he rode a giant Ikran and he sat in damned four wheeled vehicle, unable to move his legs that thinned and atrophied. "I can't walk."

She was gorgeous, with big green eyes and wide features on her face and a gorgeous, slender blue body he had enjoyed in his Avatar. "You never say anything," she sat down on the grass. "When the battle is over. What happens? You survive, you go back to your planet?"

He had thought about that, what he would do. He wanted to stay, live in the forest and run. After the stunt he pulled and gathering the plans no VA Hospital would give him the surgery he needed to heal his legs so he could do more than roll and what happened when their power supplies failed? Or if he couldn't link? He exhaled heavily, thoughts running through his mind and said, "Quaritch is coming in the morning. He's going to attack the tree of souls."

She let out a few choice words in her native language. "We follow you ma Jake. What happens after?" Her eyes narrowed in on the chair that he sat in. Fingers ran along the yellow pipes of his chair and then over the wheels again. "You aren't Toruk Macto in this. They can't fix you?"

"They could, if I had enough money."

"Money?" There is no money among the Na'vi. The tribe provides for its' members. Food is offered to all, no one is asked to starve. Money is irrelevant.

"It's when you have to buy something. Or you trade something, but I don't have enough to trade. So they left me like this."

"You said you were a great warrior?" It's only like this he sees how tall she really is. Humans are easily half the size of a full grown Na'vi and in a wheel chair he's even smaller.

He shakes his head, "I was." He leans over and pulls his shirt up, "see this big scar back here?"

She bends over his back and touches the mangled pink skin that webs out in a spider web along his lower back. "You were injured?"

"A bullet, right in the back. Went into my backbone and that was it. I woke up in the hospital and I couldn't walk."

"So why you come here?"

"Money," he snorted so sarcastically. He had come for money and the chance to walk again. "If I got enough, I would have been able to walk again. You should have seen me when I woke up in my avatar. I ran and ran until I nearly ran into the forest. I've never felt so free or so at home before."

"That's why you have no fear," she smiles and his heart melts. She's beautiful and the smile softens her features. She leans over and blue lips press against his cheek. "When it's over you walk again."

"How is that?"

"The tree of souls. We will take your soul from this body to Toruk Macto."

He wrinkled his nose in surprise. "It would work? It didn't work for grace."

"She was too sick. What did you think would happen ma Jake? We are mated for life you and I. You would not survive in the jungle like this." She pointed at his scrawny legs.

That was true and he knew it. He couldn't imagine living the rest of his life in a body that didn't work. Once this was over he would be an outcast amongst his own people. He closed his eyes and set a hand on one of her crossed knees, "are you disappointed?"

"I've seen your heart," she said quietly. "I know who you really are."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"You will die," she said plainly.

"That isn't helping."

"Why become a dream-walker?"

"My brother was supposed to come here and use the avatar. He was a scientist, like Grace and Norm. I don't know. I wanted to walk again. I was tired of being told what I couldn't do. At least here there are things I can do."

"You are Toruk Macto. You do many things well," a sly blush crossed her face.

He knew exactly what she was talking about. He wasn't sure at first if it was possible in another body but then it was and they were together.

"We need to warn everyone he's coming."

"I go now," she said standing. She gave his chair a playful push with her finger.

Playful for her sent him flying a few feet and nearly knocked him out of the chair. He jolted forward and slammed the breaks on. She leaned over and kissed his cheek before seemingly dancing as she re-entered the forest.

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